LIFE AND CHANCE 



rules in the other. Fate and freedom each play a 

 part in life. The plants that spread by runners are 

 free to spread in all directions, but they are fated 

 to run; the vines that climb by tendrils are free to 

 reach out in all directions, and their tendrils react 

 to whatever they touch, and cling there; the fate of 

 their organization limits them to this mode of get- 

 ting up in the sun and air. Were there not some- 

 thing fixed and upright, the tendriled vines and 

 plants could not get on in the world. Every tree and 

 every plant has its typical form, but what variations 

 inside that pattern or form ! The pines and spruces 

 must throw out their branches in whorls at regular 

 intervals, with one central shoot leading the ranks 

 upward; this is the fixed or stereotyped form, but 

 kill the central shoot, and the tree is free to pro- 

 mote one of the lateral shoots to take the place of 

 the lost leader. The maple-leaves, the oak-leaves, 

 are of fixed patterns, but how hard to find two leaves 

 of the same tree that are exactly alike ! The mating 

 of the queen bee and the drones in the air of a sum- 

 mer's day is a chance meeting; the mating of men 

 and women from which marriages result is largely a 

 chance meeting; the fertilization of flowers through 

 the agency of insects is largely a chance occurrence; 

 if the weather is bad for a number of consecutive 

 days, the fertilization does not take place. Chance 

 enters into life in this way. As the inorganic forces 

 are blind and haphazard, and the wind bloweth 

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